All the world's a stage...

Children need play. As I teach students preparing to be educators of young children, I point out the importance of imaginative play for children's learning and development. Imaginative play provides an opportunity for children to try on "many different hats," if you will. Imaginative play provides a safe environment for children to explore different social roles or "practice" resolving conflicts. Imaginative play helps children to make sense of the sometimes confusing world that surrounds them. If you ever want to get a good indication of how you are doing as a parent, observe your young child "playing" family or dollhouse and see what they do as the "dad" or "mom."

I recently had a bit of an "a-ha" moment. During a rehearsal for Beauty and the Beast, the director talked about the excitement of theatrical performance. As a person "becomes" a character in a dramatic role, he or she can "escape" into an alternate world in which the individual can explore and experience alternate lives in a "safe" way (although when you introduce the idea of performing in front of an audience, the experience feels far from "safe"). Through experiencing other possibilities, we can better understand ourselves and our own identity by walking in another's shoes (or, perhaps more accurately, becoming another person walking in our own shoes). In essence, dramatic performance can serve a similar function to imaginative play engaged in by young children (Hmm. Maybe that's why they call them "plays"?). Of course one does not need to "tread the floorboards" to have a "safe" escape experience and "explore" other experiences in a safe way. A good book or movie can allow us to vicariously experience alternate identities and situations that can serve to help us understand ourselves better by viewing the world through the eyes of others, but there is definitely something special about making those "other eyes" our own eyes by becoming--if only for a while--another person (or in my case in Beauty and the Beast, a rug). Another person with a different background, strengths, and shortcomings. Ironically, there is something about getting away from ourselves through the tools of imagination and pretend that can help us to see ourselves more completely and accurately when we return to our real lives. By escaping ourselves, we come to know ourselves (at least a little bit better, hopefully).

So, play on.

A Shadow of a Doubt

You know, as I was pondering religion again as I often do, I decided I needed to make a post on agnostic's. I am absolutely sure that every person who strongly believes that faith is the best method to obtain religious truth ought to happily and proudly declare themselves agnostics.

This isn't as crazy as it might sound at first. An agnostic is a person who ( in the strongest version of agnosticism) believes that it is impossible to know if God exists. Now faith, as defined by dictionary.com, is a belief which is not based on logical proof or physical evidence. Many practicitioners of religion believe that looking for proof is sign seeking, and will be punished by God. And in my past religious life I heard many talks claiming that the very weakest form of religious belief is based on evidence.

So, we can see that faith based belief is not based on any kind of clear physical evidence. In fact, faith based belief is almost the exact opposite of justification based belief. Justification, as the term is commonly understood is a process of pointing to logical reasons and evidences that would logically support the issue in question. Usually, justification is a process of establishing credibility between multiple parties, and as such the evidence must be of a physical or logical nature.

Now, most philosophers for centuries have believed that knowledge is 'true justified belief.' Let me elucidate on this a bit. First off, there is clearly a reality our there that is independent of our beliefs. For a person to know something, it must be the case that what the person believes corresponds to what is actually out in the world. It must be true. I can't correctly say that I know that 3+3 = 7 despite how strong my convictions are since this is false. I am just wrong. However, the truth or falsity of our beliefs is often beyond our ability to directly ascertain, so lets just say that just in case what we are claiming matches the reality in the universe, that it is true. Next point. I think it is obvious that we must actually believe whatever is in question to know it. Enough said. Finally, what we believe must be justified for it to be known. To show this let me give you an example. Let's say that I am extremely paranoid and I believe that every person who wears red is a criminal. Now lets suppose that today I happen to see a person on the street in a crowd wearing red. I say to myself, well that person is clearly a criminal. Now, it just so happens that by coincidence that woman did indeed rob a bank. Just because I have a belief that is true doesn't mean that I know it. It is called a lucky guess, because red clothing is a poor indicator of a persons criminal nature. My belief has no justification. I think if you will reflect on this you will see that true justified belief is the standard model for what constitutes knowledge.


So you see, a person who uses faith as a basis for beliefs must, and should deny that they have justification. Without justification there is no knowledge. If someone believes that the only way to gain the truth of something is by faith, and she seeks no justification, then she can never know that thing. Hence, a person of faith should be, by definition, an agnostic.